3D cutout bear from Debby Gilden

Debby explained, “To make this slide I got the teddy bear from clipart, and then subtracted its shape from the rectangle that I drew. I then used a bevel option (which I made more extreme) to get the 3-D effect that gives the rectangle a sort of teddy bear mold look. It was fun to see the form take form — so to speak!

“It occurred to me that people viewing this might think that it’s merely a white bear, not a subtracted shape. So I added a rotating gradient in the background to appear after one second.”

I can’t help but think of a gingerbread cookie cutter!

Building blocks from Dr. Peter Bedson

Peter said, “I built this using drawing shapes only – getting the letters on the sides of the blocks was a bit of a fiddle but it only took about 20 minutes. There are actually 6 different blocks here; I started with one and then tweaked it to get the other 5 – once you have them it is easy to change the front letter/block colour but because of the way 3D effects work you can only view them from one “side.”

Puzzle pieces from Konrad Schroth

Konrad wrote, “Here’s a slide I created using some of the techniques in your 3D series – this slide uses 3D formatting (bevels and depth), 3D rotation and shadows. The hardest part was drawing the puzzle pieces!”

He was kind enough to send me a version that showed the evolution of his puzzle.

Puzzle pieces are a great metaphor for many business and training situations.